[Steve]

personally I support it, but what does everyone else think?

[Olympas]

I don't think there is any justification for the death penalty, given that the justice system can never be perfect, and therefore innocent people are always going to be killed.

I also think it's an unnecessary waste of state resources. Criminals can be put into labour camps and such that might actually be profitable overall.

[VR]

I support it.

[sokath]

Are you gonna back that statement up VR?

I used to unequivocally support it, thinking that if someone killed someone, it was only fair, to preserve the order of things that they should die too.

However, I now waver on the issue.

On the one hand, capital punishment seems only "fair" that the person should experience the same thing that his victims did. And, in theory, it's a lot cheaper to kill someone than it is to keep them incarcerated for the rest of his life.

However, on the other hand, with a Marxist perspective killing someone is the waste of a worker and they could be put to a much more productive use in a labour camp (unfortunately, the argument against this is that it takes jobs away from unions and legitimate workers). In real life too, people stay on death row for years and are treated reasonably well, as such it's still a waste of money to the system. And forcing someone to work doesn't actually compensate the family in any way shape or form for the loss they've endured.

Either way, I'm kinda split, but at the moment I am leaning more to the abolishion of it, not for the human element, but for the practicality of it.

S./

[Wilhelm]

And forcing someone to work doesn't actually compensate the family in any way shape or form for the loss they've endured.

That's true, but killing them won't compensate either. If what they want is to see them suffer, put them in tough works and ensalve them for life, but death is just death, they're out and no suffering anymore.

I really don't care for that, I care more about the human element, besides someone could be unfairly charged of things they didn't do, I also believe in forgiveness and rehabilitation. I believe criminals are not born, they are made, and as such, can be unmade.

[Proctor]

I don't support it. We don't have it in New Zealand. I think that it is denying them any chance to reform, and saying they are lesser people, and don't deserve human rights. I find that very hard to accept.

[Delphi]

I don't think I will ever be able to decide on the death penalty.

1. Crime rates are increasing and our jails are filling up.
2. The cost to house the criminals is also raising.
3. Honestly I think you kill you deserve the same.

Although, then I think the following:

1. Its human life.
2. The wider use of the death penalty might result in even more violence if the criminal knows he is going to die if caught.
3. Death penalties are usually drawn out over 40 years, and cost millions, and sometimes never happen.
4. As previously stated, there is never a certainty that the person is guilty.

[Yeddi]

Its a toughy.... mostly i believe in the old addage an eye for an eye, and then some. BUt there is always the problem of innocents.. adn that cannot be ignored. But the current system (at least in AUs) of placing people in Jail is terrible.... that is not really punishment... for example, no one else will probly know but in 6 or so years ago there was a mass shooting (35 people, men women adn children, lead to the eventual banning of full adn semi auto rifles... but they didn't bother bout the handguns.. enter Monash shooting... 2 dead (thankfully no more)) in tasmania, the man who stood at a premier tourist spot, stood calmly holding the trigger on his fully auto rifle mowing people down. He was caught and now sits comfortably in his own PRIVATE cell with CABLE TV... his own PRIVATE exercise yard adn basically anything he wants... adn the families whose lives he decimated (one man lost his wife adn both of his daughters...) have to pay for his comfort, that makes me fknig sick. he should suffer the lovely exectution used by england for treason in the middle ages.
1. Castration.
2. half hung (not death but gradual strangulation)
3. bowels extracted
4. axe to the neck
5. body quartered
the head put on display in the capital, the 4 parts of the body placed in 4 towns that the person frequented...
thats justice for people like that.... 35 people sorry, kinda off topic, i'll try and get on topic again.

in a case such as this, death penalty definately. i think though, u need a constant punishment, therefore i think forced labour is important, no death.. no innocent should die.. a pardon from the government doesn't mean anything when your dead.

[CasX]

Capital Punishment is bullshit I think.

1) It doesn't reduce crime. (studies find)
2) It costs as much as keeping someone in prison for life. (legal costs, appeals etc)

I don't think the state should ever have the power of life or death over it's citizens. Citizens should run the state, not the other way around.

If we took an eye for an eye we'd all end up blind

Go Einstein, he's the man.

People have been going an eye for an eye for thousands of years and it's never worked.

[Proctor]

I like the Einstein quote!

[Olympas]

I swear that's Gandhi, not Einstein.

http://www.peaceheroes.com/PeaceHeroes/ ... gandhi.htm

The only Einstein quote I know is "God does not play dice."

[VR]

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" was originally said by Mahathma Gandhi, NOT EINSTEIN. Want an Einstein quote, kids?

I don't know what weapons that'll be fought with in World War III, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Einstein, you da man!

Err... Back to topic.

Are you gonna back that statement up VR?

Fair enough.

* It's an efficent way to get rid of the utter bastards of the Universe, like child killers, pedos, mass-rapists, spies and other lovely people whom I'd love to personally twist the neck off if given the chance.
* It's cost efficent. A bullet is cheaper than a cell and some food.
* Fear is an efficent tool of management...

But seriously, it should only be used in extreme cases. Common thiefs and other life-life scum can rot away in prison for a few months/years. Also, it should only be used when the criminals guilt has been 100% proved. Mistakes can NOT be accepted.

[Olympas]

* It's cost efficent. A bullet is cheaper than a cell and some food.

It's not cost efficient when you can make a profit out of putting them to work.

And no offense, but you are stupid or naive if you think we can ever, ever be 100% sure of anything, let alone a capital offense conviction.

[Yeddi]

you can be certain that Bryant killed all those people (the 35 i mentioned before) he was nabbed at the scene and the place was full of witnesses... but u are right, for the 99.9% of cases it would be impossible to be the full 100% sure.

[VR]

And no offense, but you are stupid or naive if you think we can ever, ever be 100% sure of anything, let alone a capital offense conviction.

On the contrary, you can. The criminal may admit guilt, or the amount of evidence against the criminal could be so great that the prosecuters can be completely sure that the criminal is guilty.

I'm not saying that I want criminals to be executed by the thousands or anything. I'm just saying that I support the use for it in extreme situations.

It's not cost efficient when you can make a profit out of putting them to work.

Three cheers for slave labour, then?

[sokath]

And no offense, but you are stupid or naive if you think we can ever, ever be 100% sure of anything, let alone a capital offense conviction.

On the contrary, you can. The criminal may admit guilt, or the amount of evidence against the criminal could be so great that the prosecuters can be completely sure that the criminal is guilty.

It has been proven that many capital-case confession have been forced, or at very least lies. It's actually VERY difficult to prove 100%.

It's not cost efficient when you can make a profit out of putting them to work.

Three cheers for slave labour, then?

Pretty much, yes. It's a lot cheaper than the current capital punishment system which has become an inefficient bureaucracy. Prisoners sit on death row for YEARS wasting the government/the people's money. Why not have them perpertually MAKE money in a forced labour camp. So much more efficient.

S./

[Olympas]

Thanks sokath, that's pretty much what I would have said. I might also add that penal labour camps are hardly "slave labour". These aren't innocent people who've been forced into slavoury and get sold between rich cotton-farm owners. They're convicted criminals who deserve to be punished and benefit/pay back their country at the same time.

[Proctor]

Even if they are crims, they are still human, so deserve human rights, which means they shouldn't be slaves, or whatever you want to call them. But hey!

On the subject of forced confessions, what I think is awesome is guys who know they are going to die, so they confess, but in a way that people can later see that everything they said was a load of shit. An example is this guy tried for war crimes, he admitted that he used a big fat high calibre pistol, which from the range he said would have completely blown the guys head from his shoulders, when there was only a simple entry and exit wound in all the corpses.

[sokath]

Yes.... "awesome"... *ahem*



S./

[Olympas]

Even if they are crims, they are still human, so deserve human rights, which means they shouldn't be slaves, or whatever you want to call them. But hey!

I think the right to life is more important the the right not to be forced into work. We're talking about alternatives for the death penalty here. Forced labour is infinitely kinder.